I was shocked to see how lomng it had been since my last blog entry. i post daily to Facebook. All Facebook posts go to Twitter. All blog posts go to Faceboook, but these do not reciprocate to the Dream Factory. I need to work on something to make this work better.
In the meantime, here are a few and anyone can follow me any time on my Facebook page: TOM SIMS
On Profiling
We all profile people. We do it as a knee jerk reaction. We do it quickly and we do it for reasons we do not always know. We size people up and put them in boxes of our minds. We categorize them and assign them motives and characteristics based upon what we see filtered through the stories we have heard and the stories we have lived.
Occasionally, we are somewhat correct. The problem is, we are often wrong. We cannot quickly change our knee jerk reactions, but we can train ourselves not to so readily believe and act upon them. We can remember how often we have been wrong. We can think before we act. We can listen before we speak. We can deescalate rather than "standing our ground." We can learn new stories and discover new and more interesting profiles.
I have profiled people and I have been profiled.
But I am learning … have been … will continue to be learning.
There is no escaping that we are, in part, products of our environments and the shared assumptions of those who surround us. We are always at the mercy of limited knowledge IF … IF … IF we allow ourselves to be.
We are also capable of stepping back, reaching out, learning, growing, and loving.
I am so sad about the times I have blurted out my pontifical pronouncements based upon prejudicial assumptions. Mine are different than yours, perhaps, but they are still very, very dark. I am grateful that, in those times, I did not have a weapon on me other than the soul piercing sword of ill conceived words. I am grateful for the restraining Hand upon my shoulder of One who does actually know me very well (and love me very, very well) to say "STOP! You are getting this all wrong."
What wonderful lessons of life I have learned from folks I might easily dismissed as having nothing to say.
And what a blessing it is in life that we can keep rewriting our own profile — like on Facebook.
God bless you all. I am operating on the assumption that we are all here for a reason, uniquely and wonderfully made, passionately loved by God, and immeasurably valuable to each other. Thanks for being my friends.
Quote from "What's So Amazing About Grace"
On Prejudice and Fear
We often think of prejudice as merely manifest in angry avarice and dislike of people from other cultures, races, or ideologies. That is certainly one such manifestation, but it is not the most prevalent. If it were, many of us could dismiss ourselves from the indictment with the words, "I hate no one" and be perfectly sincere, honest, and innocent.
However, there is a glitch in that thinking. The most common manifestation of prejudice against people is not hatred; it is fear. Fear is a powerful force and can express itself in fight or flight. Fear based upon generalized, false, or stereotyped assumptions is dangerous, ignorant, and hurtful, but it is also curable.
It can be cured by exposure, conversation, knowledge, and experience.
That is why Mark Twain said, ""Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. "
The cure: Get out among some people who do not look, talk, think, or believe like you this weekend and spend more time asking questions and listening than giving answers and making assumptions. Then, report back what you have learned in a few days.
A Bright Idea
"The major difference between hating and loving is perhaps that whereas to love somebody is to be fulfilled and enriched by the experience, to hate somebody is to be diminished and drained by it. Lovers, by losing themselves in their loving, find themselves, become themselves. Haters simply lose themselves. Theirs is the ultimately consuming passion." -Originally published in Whistling in the Dark
To be a Jesus follower is to be and strive to be a Christian as well as other things. It is to receive the free gift of grace and to live by and in grace and by the supreme law of love. It is to be a disciple of Jesus before any thing else, loving God and loving neighbor — even those with whom we disagree on one issue or another — even those of other faiths or of no faith.
We are a counter-cultural people. Sometimes, we fit in. Sometimes we don't. There are elements of culture we celebrate and embrace and others with which we contrast at one point or another in history. God called the Jews to observe some laws that made no sense to anyone and sometimes, not to them — mainly to stand out as distinct, holy, and unique. Many continue to observe some of those laws out of love for G_d.
We are not married to government, to party, or to any one political philosophy, but we are loyal to the law of love and all of those "laws and prophets" that "hang on" the laws of love. We are loyal to God.
When asked, by FB, my political affiliation or position, I thought about it. It is really up for reevaluation, reassessment, and rewrite, but several years ago, I wrote this. It has been my bias for years (I have others, but we all do — mostly having to do with economic theories where I am both principled and utilitarian and constitutional issues where I have a nagging sense of Jeffersonian libertarian-ism — but the are of far lesser importance and up for debate). Here are the ones that count most and I cannot find a home for them and myself in any political party:
Biases: The Poor, Peace, Justice, Truth, Diplomacy, The Beatitudes.
For me, as a citizen, I have to weigh my choices, votes, and voice based upon my values and those are the ones. Primary ones are directly above, secondary ones in the parentheses). Sometimes it is a mathematical equation and tightrope walk to figure out what to do — but I pray and do what I feel God leading me to do. In other words, I try to follow my conscience.
I am also an American and I believe in our system and I love our people — left, right, center — they all have something to say and something to bring to the table. I need to listen. We all need to listen. We all need to be respectful and reasonable and restrained in our characterizations of peoples' motives, intents, and deeds.
We need to feel free to speak our minds and hearts and we need to make space for others to speak their minds and hearts. So speak your minds and hearts.
It has been a week of momentous court rulings – many of which will change our society (less than we think — because people drive our society) and our political exchanges. However, none of these changes what it means to be a Jesus follower and none of these can change what it means to be the church and how we do church.
And … if you have a conviction that goes against the grain or even gets you entangled with the law (civil disobedience) or leads to persecution — take it as Jesus would and did and take the consequences as He did and taught us to do, with gratitude, joy, and grace.
But come back to the table and refocus on what it is that primarily drives your life and let that drive you. No outside force determines your inward drive. That comes by faith and conviction. Live with integrity. That finger is pointed in my face
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